During the 20th century three housing estates were built in Welland, all on land that had only been enclosed from Welland Common in the 1850s. (Housing estates in Upper Welland will be covered in another article.)

Marlbank/The Avenue

The first council houses appeared in Welland in the 1920s when six pairs of semi-detached houses were constructed on the A4104 Marlbank Road at the western end of the village (see map). They had no electricity – Welland did not get an electricity supply until the 1930s. Nor were they fitted with running water – each pair of houses had to share a pump.

More council houses and bungalows were built on the land behind these six in the 1930s and post-war years, forming the roads now known as The Avenue, Brookside and Chestnut Close. The estate is roughly triangular, bounded by the Marlbank Brook, the A4104 and the cemetery and Welland House.

A number of tenancy agreements from the 1950s and 60s in the archives at The Hive reveal that the rent for a house in 1952 was 12/- per week. A rent collector called on Mondays. Tenants had to agree to abide by a list of regulations including keeping the property clean and in good order, reporting problems to the council promptly and requesting permission before decorating or putting up a garden shed. One week’s notice was required to quit the property. All these documents still refer to the houses as ’23 Marlbank’, ’27 Marlbank’, etc. At this time Upton Rural District Council owned the properties, which amounted to more than 50 by the 1960s.

Malcolm Brookes and his family lived in one of the original council houses on Marlbank Road, no. 6, now no. 8. His maternal grandparents, John and Ada Stanley, moved into no. 6 when it was built, together with their daughters Florence and Edith. John died not long before Edith married Harold Brookes in July 1927, leaving Ada, Edith and her new husband to share the house. It remained the Brookes family home until 2013. Malcolm has written the following account of life at no. 6. The track between nos. 6 and 7 that he mentions was to become The Avenue later as more houses were built.

As far as I know there were only 12 council houses on Marlbank Road in the mid-1920’s. Garrett Bank can be clearly seen in Edith and Harold’s wedding photo. These six pairs of semi-detached houses had just a rough track to farmland between nos. 6 and 7. The council houses had sizeable gardens and at no. 6 my family grew vegetables and flowers, kept chickens, ducks and pigs and my father, Harold, also kept chickens on an adjacent allotment.

The track (which, in my early days, was known only as the lane) was adopted as an access to more properties, possibly those built in the 1930s. This development was further extended in the 1950’s with yet more semi-detached houses/bungalows.

Again, in the 1970’s, or thereabouts, an ‘in-fill’ pair of semi-detached houses was built by the brook (numbered 1 & 2 Marlbank Road – hence the renumbering of the original houses) and cul-de-sacs of new bungalows were also built in the gardens behind these original council houses. It may well have been at this later time that the lane was signposted as The Avenue although I’m not certain. Obviously, the large gardens were considerably reduced in size to facilitate this last development and it was about this time that these old council owned houses were given a complete renovation.

My three older sisters were born at no. 6 in 1930, 1932 and 1934 and I followed in 1946. I can remember the house with no running water. Water was pumped from a well shared with the adjacent neighbour. The pump froze at times in the winter even though it was lagged.

The house had three bedrooms upstairs and a hall, kitchen and living room downstairs. There was no bathroom. The toilet and coal house were outside in a separate brick building. We had to use a bucket of water from the pump to flush the toilet. it was an extremely cold experience in the winter.

The kitchen had a gloss-painted brickwork interior, lino on the floor and there was a coal-fuelled range cooker/oven with an adjacent coal furnace under a washtub. Usually on a Sunday, when the range was hottest, we used a tin bath filled with hot water in front of the range fire in the kitchen to have a bath. Often, as the youngest child, I was the last to have a bath. On the north side of the kitchen was a larder with a cold stone slab but this was knocked out in the 1950’s. I remember our pig carcasses being hung on hooks up the stairs in the hall to cure.

Originally there was no electricity and the house was lit by oil lamps and candles. A radio was operated by a battery (an accumulator) which was taken to Roberts’s garage on the Gloucester Road, Welland, to be charged. I’m not exactly certain when electricity was put in the houses but there were many power cuts. Water was piped into the houses in the early 1950’s and it made a huge difference. With water plumbed in we had a proper bathroom with a flushing toilet and chain and in the kitchen we had a Burco Boiler for doing the washing and the old range was replaced by an electric cooker. The property was further upgraded over the years and in about 1980 there was a full renovation of these old houses; walls were plastered and the downstairs bathroom was upgraded, central heating was installed and an upstairs toilet was put in.

As life was one of self-dependence in the early days at the house, a large garden was very important to provide vegetables and a food source throughout the year. Welland, of course, did have a bakery (or delivery from Pearce’s of Upton), and I believe there was a butcher’s. The post office moved location a few times, and before the Co-op deliveries, you could buy a jug of milk from Laddie Bishop from Bishop’s Farm (Duckswich Farm, Upton), who delivered milk by horse and cart.

During WW2 the family regularly saw the American soldiers, based at St. Wulstan’s, Upper Welland, passing by and sometimes they would stop and give sweets or gum. My family also housed Land Army girls during the war and one or two kept in touch after the war ended. Sharing bedrooms just had to be accepted during this time.

There are many stories that can be recounted of my family’s lives at this council house over the years but I hope the above is of interest.

Welland Gardens

Welland Gardens, off the B4208 Gloucester Road (see map), consisting of 45 houses and bungalows, was constructed in the 1960s. According to a newspaper advertisement from July 1968, 24 houses were then in the process of being built and prices ranged from £4,350 to £4,650, with central heating as an optional extra.

A further six houses were added at the end of Welland Gardens to form Merryfields in 2001.

Giffard Drive

The 1970 Welland Village Report written by the Worcestershire county planning officer included a map showing the area of fields south of the Marlbank Road as a ‘possible development site’. Giffard Drive, also referred to as Bishop’s Wood Estate, was eventually built in the early 1980s by Bovis (see map). The estate has a variety of detached and semi-detached houses and bungalows numbering more than 100 dwellings in all.

Giffard Drive and the closes leading off it were named after bishops of Worcester to commemorate the fact that for much of its history the manor of Welland was owned by the bishopric. The reasons for choosing these particular bishops are unknown at present. Most are from the 13th and 14th centuries: Thomas Cobham, William Gainsborough, Godfrey Giffard, Adam Orleton and Walter Reynolds. Walter Blandford was bishop in the 17th century.

The site was planned to allow for some existing trees to be kept. A number of large oaks on the estate are survivors from the former field boundaries and a fragmentary section of hedge also remains.

Interestingly, the 1970 report suggested footpaths be included to connect the estate to the A4104 opposite what are now Lime Grove and Cornfield Close, and the B4208 near the shop, but these were never built.